HK student leader calls off hunger strike

HONG KONG (AFP) – Joshua Wong, the teenage face of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, said Saturday he has ended a four-day hunger strike designed to force the government into further talks on political reform.

“Under the strong urging of the doctor, I have stopped the hunger strike,” Wong, who had not eaten in 108 hours, said on his Facebook and Twitter feeds.

The 18-year-old said he felt “extreme physical discomfort, dizziness and weakness in the limbs”.

“Even if I stop the hunger strike, it doesn’t mean that the Hong Kong government can ignore our de-mands,” Wong said.

Wong and two young female members of his Scholarism student group announced the “indefinite” hunger strike following one of the worst nights of violence at the de-monstrations last Sunday.